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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24206038">Golden</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotetofollow/pseuds/anotetofollow'>anotetofollow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Established Relationship, F/F, Family Feels, Gentle Sex, Lazy Mornings, Light Angst, Morning Sex, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 15:35:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,695</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24206038</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotetofollow/pseuds/anotetofollow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>For Shay and Morrigan, a quiet morning is a rare thing.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Mahariel/Morrigan (Dragon Age), Morrigan/Female Warden (Dragon Age)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>61</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Golden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/alynshir/gifts">alynshir</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>My heart is beating I can't turn away<br/>My heart is beating I can't deny it<br/>Cause you make me feel golden<br/>And I want to make you feel golden, too<br/>You make me feel like me (<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/03UZ8fbo1heGpeeVI380lY">x</a>)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Everything is golden here.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Morrigan always forgets this until she arrives in the gilded city, every pennant and spire flashing in the sunlight. Val Royeaux is wheat-gold, autumn-gold, as gold as the mirror she keeps close to her always.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It has become a pattern of sorts. One of them will receive a message, some tip or suggestion or new piece of information, sometimes for Shay, sometimes for her, and then they will be gone again. They travel the length and breadth of the land until their quests bear fruit, or the road runs out, or they are simply too tired to continue. And then they return to the world again a while, so that their son might know how to live in it as well as in the wilderness. He will have a choice. He will be prepared for all things, all eventualities, in a way that she never was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Morrigan watches them now. They are sitting at the cast-iron table on the balcony, speaking in low voices to one another. It is a warm, slow day. The tall doors of the apartment are open, and so their whispers carry in on the breeze. Shay is saying words in an elven dialect that Morrigan half-understands, enunciating each syllable slowly. Kieran’s brow furrows in concentration as he repeats them back to her. So serious, teetering on the cusp of adolescence, conscious of every movement of his body. He pronounces a word wrong and Shay corrects him gently. When she makes the </span>
  <em>
    <span>th</span>
  </em>
  <span> sound Morrigan sees the tip of her tongue press pinkly to her teeth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They have been in this apartment for two weeks now. How much longer they will stay Morrigan can not be sure, but she hopes their visit is not cut too short. The suite has high ceilings and cool tile floors, tall windows that let the light in, looks out over a market square that sends a murmur of chatter drifting through the air. It is a pleasant place.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She is lying on the sofa in the lounge, feet bare, hair loose, the first tisane of the morning banishing the last vestiges of sleep from her mind. There are things to do, she is certain, although none of them seem especially important at this moment in time. For now she is content to simply watch as Shay and Kieran undertake their morning’s lesson, he her little echo.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sometimes when Morrigan looks at them it hurts. There is more love than her heart was built to hold. When Kieran rests his dark head on her shoulder, when Shay places a hand in the small of her back while they are walking through the city, when the three of them sit talking over dinners that stretch for hours, she feels the ache behind her ribs, low and sweet and painful.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When she was a child there had been a robin that had come to the hut. It would alight on the windowsill every morning, feast on the beetles that gathered there. Morrigan begin sneaking crumbs into her pocket from meals to leave out for the little bird. She would watch, wide-eyed, as it fluttered down to peck at the scraps of bread. Its eyes were black and beady, its breast a shocking crimson.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then, one day, it had stopped coming. On the third day of its absence Morrigan worked up the courage to ask her mother why, a suspicion settling heavy in her stomach.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Flemeth had looked at her levelly, her mouth a thin line. “Love can be a weakness, girl,” she had said. “You can have power over the fragile things of this world, if you desire it. But you cannot have both. There will come a day when you must choose.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>That day had come a long time ago, and Morrigan had made her choice. She had chosen love, had chosen light and warmth and a heart laid open, had chosen it in the first moment she had held her son to her chest, and again when Shay had called her name by the eluvian. She had chosen it every day since. Morrigan had made herself a fragile thing, and done it gladly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kieran is beginning to fidget in his seat. He says something to Shay, and she nods significantly in Morrigan’s direction. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Ask your mother.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Mother,” he says, walking into the lounge. “Yanis is going to the plaza today. To watch the parade. Can I go with him?” His eyes are wide, pleading.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Morrigan sighs. It is always her instinct to say no, to keep him close, to shelter him from all potential harm, but he is growing older now. At a certain point that protection becomes more hurt than help. A few hours of play with the neighbour’s son is not an unreasonable request. “Very well,” she says. “Be home by third bell.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thank you. I will.” Grinning from ear to ear, he dashes out of the apartment. Morrigan can hear his footsteps in the hallway outside, the excited knocking on the next door.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Relinquished from her teaching duties, Shay gets up from the balcony and pads inside. She stretches her arms over her head, the movement outlining the musculature of her arms, lifting her shirt to expose her stomach. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Waking up still. Half-tired.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So,” Morrigan says, pushing her hair back behind her ear. “How are the lessons progressing?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Very well.” Shay’s eyebrows raise a little, her eyes crinkling at the corners. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Proud, proud, so proud. </span>
  </em>
  <span>“He’s picking it up quickly.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re a fine teacher.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Shay arches her back a little at the compliment, then kneels down beside the sofa. When she leans in to kiss Morrigan it’s a slow thing, almost lazy, like the morning, like the light. Morrigan sighs as Shay slips a hand under the silk of her robe to cup her breast, her skin impossibly warm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I see,” she says, a smile curling at the corners of her mouth. “Never one to waste time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We have a little privacy.” Shay strokes circles with her thumb. “A rare enough thing. Let’s make the most of it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There is nothing to be argued with. Morrigan allows herself to be led into the bedroom, lets Shay slip the robe from her shoulders as she undoes the buttons of her shirt. The sheets on the bed are soft cotton, cool against her skin as she settles against the pillows. Shay lays alongside her, kisses her throat as she pulls her close, sucking heat to the surface. Morrigan runs her fingers along the curve of her spine as she sighs, counts the notches. The morning light that spills through the thin curtains turns Shay’s hair to spun gold.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Calloused hand trailing over the curve of her hip, between her legs, and Morrigan draws in a breath as pleasure floods her. She grips the curve of her lover’s waist, sinking into the feel of it, the ache. As she parts her legs to accommodate the touch Morrigan slips her thigh between Shay’s, smiles as she pushes up against it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wanting, needing. Keep going.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They snatch these moments where they can. In the ruins of ancient temples, attic rooms of roadside inns, tents piled with furs to keep the cold away. Each drawing the other like a lodestone, navigating home when home is not a place but a person. Yet it is rare for them to have luxuries such as this; a morning alone, a bed, an empty room. They do not often get to indulge in one another, to stop and listen to the music their bodies make.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Morrigan presses her lips to Shay’s shoulder, gasping as the hunter slips her fingers inside her, pulls them out slick to tease again. She is smiling at her own cleverness, her skill, beautiful in her arrogance. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I know you, I know you. </span>
  </em>
  <span>But Morrigan is clever too. As she pushes her thigh firmly between Shay’s legs, feeling her heat, she lets her fingers wander upwards, stroking her clavicle, the nape of her neck, the pointed slope of her ear. Shay whispers something in a dialect Morrigan is let to learn, but that matters little when she can read the meaning in the curl of her lip, the tension in her belly. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wish. Entreaty. Please.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They move in rhythm with each other, pressing into touches, curving to make room, to feel more, to come closer. Shay’s mouth is hot against her chest, her free hand tangled in Morrigan’s hair. It is one thing to change your skin, to become another animal, to grow fur and feathers and fangs. It is another thing entirely to lay with another until you become one creature, a single mind bound in desire. In love.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And then she is breathing hard, and she is breathing hard, and they are flush together and clawing, kissing, flesh and fingers slick, names on one another’s lips. They collapse together, all tangled limbs and laughter. For a moment Morrigan feels so very young again, so alive to the pleasures of the world. She wants to gather life to her, greedily, stake her claim on it. Flemeth was wrong. There is no weakness in this. She has found a power that her mother has never known.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good morning.” Shay kisses the corner of her eye.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Morrigan smiles. “That it is.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What time is it, anyway?” A tilt of the head. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Suggestion, inference.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She reaches out, curls an errant strand of Shay’s hair around her finger. “Not yet noon.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A smile that means </span>
  <em>
    <span>victory.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “Three hours at least, then.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh? I cannot guess at your intentions.” Morrigan’s voice drips with sarcasm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then I’d better demonstrate, hadn’t I?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It is an afternoon that lasts for ages, that lasts for minutes. They miss appointments, run no errands, forget to eat. The world has shrunk to the size of their room. When they are finally exhausted they simply lay together, unspeaking, Morrigan’s cheek resting in the hollow of Shay’s shoulder. A fit so perfect it seems almost planned.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dust motes float in the light that slants in through the open window, dancing in eddies. All is slow and right and golden and, for once, it does not hurt.</span>
</p>
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